Like the best Herbie Hancock ballads, “Butterfly” has inner complexity, outer beauty, – and a little mysteriousness.

by S. Victor Aaron Not the bass player for Aerosmith, but a musician named “Tom Hamilton” with a more ambitious calling. For more than forty years, the nonpop New Music composer and performer Hamilton has treated music as a laboratory for experimentation, and a pioneer of using electronics for anarchistic,Read More

by Pico Rufus Reid has never had the flamboyant, edgy comportment of, say, Charles Mingus, but for decades now, he’s been a first-call bassist for many of the finest jazz (and even non-jazz) musicians. Making his way to the top level of bottom pluckers via stints in the Thad Jones-MelRead More

by Nick DeRiso Bassist Charles Mingus, an enlightening yet stormy presence, clearly felt he had unfinished business with some of his earlier work. So, he used “Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus” and a move to the more creatively open Impulse! label to take another pass at them. That turned intoRead More

by S. Victor Aaron When I heard Joe Higham’s wonderfully diverse world fusion treat Where Are We Now? last year, I became suspicious that the Low Countries might be a magnet for out-the-box thinking for jazz players. Listening to Eric Vloeimans and his Gatecrash’s new release Heavensabove! just confirmed thoseRead More

by S. Victor Aaron You know the story: a band goes in the studio to records tracks for an album and finds they recorded more than what they needed for that record, so they leave one or two tracks off of it. You’ve also seen this play out: a majorRead More

photo: Valerie Trucchia by S. Victor Aaron Since starting up this site about four years ago, we’ve taken a look at a Japanese whack jazzer only once, but the fact of the matter is, the Land of the Rising Sun is a haven for music that’s unconventional, unpredictable and thrivingRead More

by S. Victor Aaron These days, there’s very little in the way of positive vibes coming out of Venezuela to the U.S., so to balance things out, I’m going to offer up one: Otmaro Ruiz. Ruiz hails from Caracas, but his muse—not to mention his abilities on piano—brought him toRead More

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times by S. Victor Aaron Last month ECM put on sale new offerings by two of their oldest stalwarts: drummer Paul Motian and Ralph Towner. Motian has been discussed on this site probably more than any other drummer, no doubt due to his longRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Last Tuesday, HighNote Records furnished two new CD’s, each by established veterans of the jazz scene. Look on the back of just about any classic Blue Note album from the 60s, and you’re likely to see Joe Chambers’ name listed as the drummer. And while there’sRead More